JSE-listed gold mining major Harmony Gold has recorded a fatality rate of 0.03 per million hours worked across all operations, meeting its safety management and performance targets for 2013, says Harmony Gold CEO Graham Briggs.

“Our safety strategy includes behavioural aspects, competence training and develop- ment, as well as research and new technologies. We believe safety in the workplace can only be addressed using a cooperative approach that ensures the right infrastructure is in place – from systems and planning to communication and training,” he notes.

Briggs mentions that health and safety committees are in place at all operations, as required by the Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA), adding that full-time health and safety stewards and health and safety representatives have been appointed.

He points out that there were 61 full-time health and safety stewards in place at the South African operations in 2012 and says these committees comprise representatives from management and other elected employees to ensure the active participation of Harmony Gold’s staff in health and safety management.

“All safety representatives receive additional training, in line with the revised Mining Qualifications Authority standards. The committees meet monthly to discuss employee health and safety issues, and formal health and safety agreements are in place at all operations to deal with related issues,” he explains.

Further, Harmony Gold believes that management and employees must accept joint responsibility for their actions and should recognise the importance of the working environment to empower people – including management, supervisors, workers and union representatives – to stop work and withdraw from the mining area when they feel it is unsafe or prevent others from acting in an unsafe way.

“Safety is a key performance indicator for management and a key component of performance rewards for our people. Histori-cally, these rewards were based on reactive performance measures, but we are developing ways to assess performance based on proactive measures.

“The steady improvement in the lost-time-injury frequency rate (LTIFR) at our operations is encouraging and proves that the foundation of better safety performance built over the last five years remains intact. Although the long-term trend for fatalities and the LTIFR is firmly downward, we accept that we have some way to go to reach these goals,” Briggs highlights.

To achieve the primary objective of eliminating work-related injuries and illness, health and safety remain top of the list on all union and management agendas.

Moreover, Harmony Gold is progressing well in its attempt to ensure that healthcare reaches its operations through the introduction of health hubs and primary healthcare facilities. The company also hosted a two-day health symposium with all recognised labour unions in the final quarter of 2013 to address the company’s health strategy and improve its employee wellness profile. “To date, we have recorded an improvement in absenteeism of nearly 3%,” adds Briggs.

Safety Records

For the third consecutive year, there were no fatal accidents at the Harmony Gold Mafikeng openpit mine, Kalgold, while the LTIFR improved to 1.27 per million hours worked, from 5.43 per million hours worked in 2011.

Kalgold received a special safety award from the Association of Mine Managers of South Africa for achieving 2.5-million fatality-free shifts during the year – a milestone that took 16 years to reach, states the com- pany in its 2013 yearly integrated report, which further states that Kalgold was awarded second place in the MineSafe competition for year-on-year improvement in LTIFR in 2012 and 2013. The report says Kalgold recorded 51 white-flag days and reached a million fatality-free shifts during the year.

However, gold volumes at Kalgold declined by 17% over the year, largely owing to a malfunction in the preprimary crushers in the first quarter of 2013. While the crushers were being repaired, ore was crushed by two mobile plants and lower throughput from the crusher was mitigated by feeding higher-grade material from the stockpile.

Briggs highlights that the Kalgold plant was evaluated by a team of in-house and external experts, which prepared an action plan to address outstanding maintenance and implement improvements. “This included replacing and repairing the carbon- in-leach (CIL) tanks, the carbon regeneration circuit and the elution circuit in the third quarter. As a result, gold produced for the year decreased 17% to 1 041 kg,” he says.

Despite this lower level of production and cash costs of R293 658/kg, Kalgold reported a production profit of R131-million in June. Still, the increase in unit costs largely reflected lower gold production, while the tonnage mined remained relatively constant. Capital expenditure for the year was R76-million, which was spent mostly on replacing the CIL tanks.

Stoppages

Mining Weekly reported last month that Harmony Gold halted certain operations at its Tshepong mine, near Welkom, in the Free State, after there had been a fall-of-ground fatality.

Tshepong has a single vertical shaft extending 2 161 m below collar. Ore is transported 23 km to the Harmony 1 plant. The Sub-71 project, completed in April, connects Tshepong with Phakisa, another Harmony Gold operation, on the Basal reef. This extends the existing double decline from 71 to 76 levels to enable mining on the 73 and 75 levels. Harmony Gold management is investigating ways of implementing a waste/reef split from the Sub-71 decline, which currently affects recovered grade.

In October, Phakisa suspended operations, following the death of an employee who was fatally injured in a fall-of-ground incident.

Briggs says that Harmony Gold’s objective is to eliminate all work-related injuries and illness, adding that, to accelerate the execution of the company’s health and safety strategy and further improve safety performance in South Africa, Harmony Gold created an executive position for safety and health in August 2011.

“The appointed executive, Alwyn Pretorius, has more than 18 years’ experience in the mining industry and a good understanding of underground conditions and the working environment to which our underground workers are exposed. Each operation is monitored monthly using a formal review system, while major safety issues are reviewed yearly during the health and safety workshop,” he says.

Briggs adds that safety is about attitudes and mindsets, pointing out that the company has renewed its focus on implementing, communicating and reinforcing safety in the workplace. It has also created a centralised safety function to coordinate initiatives between regions and mines.

“Guided by an occupational health and safety policy, our cooperative health and safety management framework involves the active participation of management, unions and mineral resources department representatives at all levels. It is also aligned with the MHSA,” he concludes.